“Ten years ago, I was a single Mom, in a high stress corporate marketing position, wearing tidy suits and pinchie heels to work everyday. I was also trying to heal from cancer surgery and the loss of my spouse. To soothe my soul, I began playing the Native American flute. Several months later, I found a second-hand harp. Even though my mother and grandmother had been harpists, until then, I had no interest at all in playing. In spite of myself, I fell in love with the harp. Then, since I had both a harp and a flute, I taught myself to play them together. With this new music in my life, I now had a medium where my creative self could find expression.
A few years later, my two year old granddaughter, Jessica, became gravely ill and was in a coma in ICU. I would sit by her bed and play her lullabies on my harp. We watched the monitors show her response to the music, as her rapid heart rate went from 179 to 111, the oxygen saturation in her blood increased, and her breathing became more relaxed. The nurses loved to come into the room where the harp was playing. It became for them a center of peace.
